Only a handful of Aussie unis still teach Russian. Japanese, French, and Italian still seem to be the most common, with Mandarin increasing over the past few years. Interest in Spanish has also been increasing thanks to Latin America. Mandarin and Spanish have both been dropped at some unis though, so it’s difficult to really say what’s most popular and why.

It is extremely frustrating. I still prefer Australian universities but the bureaucracy and administration are the same everywhere since money is always the number one priority.

Hey, sounds a lot like American universities, if you replace “rugby” with “football”. I’m sorry to hear language programs are being cut – it’s always sad when that happens. At my alma mater, the Russian program was cut in 1992 or so, once the Soviet Union fell. I was lucky because the administration didn’t fire the Russian professors, so we still had classes, just no major.

I really can’t conceive of cutting language programs, especially in major, important languages like Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, or Russian. Not that less commonly taught languages aren’t important, but those four I listed are all official UN languages AND two are languages of members of the Security Council, for goodness sakes. I know you didn’t mention Russian being cut, but the other three are being cut in Australia, I personally know of Russian programs that were cut in the US… Ugh, it’s so frustrating when this happens!

Great post about Oz. Just came across your blog, on my follow list now. Not seen any blogs about learning French and travelling before, great idea. I was in Oz about 8 years ago for four months teaching English. I live in Sevilla now, Spain, teaching English and learning Spanish. All good fun. Miss those days travelling up the Gold Coast though.

Good luck

Barry

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